I had not been in New York twenty-four hours before
Keats' "Lamia," 1820--with an inscription from the author to Charles
Lamb--the very copy from which, I imagine, Lamb wrote his review, was in
my hands; but it would have been far beyond my means even if the pound
were not standing at 3.83. These "association" books, in which American
collectors take especial pleasure, can be very costly. At a sale soon
after I left New York, seven presentation copies of Dickens' books,
containing merely the author's signed inscription, realised 4870
dollars. To continue, in Wanamaker's old curiosity department I found
little but English furniture and odds and ends, at prices which in their
own country would have been fantastically high. In the "Vanity Fair"
department, however (as I think it is called), the source was French. I
suppose that French influence must be at the back of all the costumiers
and jewellers of New York, but the shops themselves are far more
spacious than those in Paris and not less well-appointed. Tiffany's is a
palace; all it lacks is a name, but its splendid anonymity is, I take
it, a point of honour.
It used to be said that good Americans when they died went to Paris. The
Parisian lure no doubt is still powerful; but every day I should guess
that more of Paris comes to America. The upper parts of New York have
boulevards and apartment houses very like the real thing, and I noticed
that the architecture of France exerts a special attraction for the rich
man decreeing himself a pleasure dome.
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